by Ellery Kane
“Don’t.” I pulled away at the finality of his tone.
“I want to help you,” I offered, not even sure that was possible.
“You can’t. No one can.” He reached toward his lap out of my view. When his hand returned to the armrest, his fist was a tight ball. He opened his fingers slowly the way a bud blooms. Resting on his palm, a small vial and a syringe. “I failed.”
“What do you mean?” He uncapped the needle and plunged it into the bottle, drawing the clear liquid inside. “What is that? Who gave it to you?
“I wasn’t supposed to get caught. That wasn’t part of the mission.”
“What mission? Tell me what happened.”
“What happened …” His laugh scraped my soul. It was like the desperate cry of an animal. “Sebastian told me someone would try to convince me to talk. You know what happens if I talk.”
At the mention of String, I had to remind myself to breathe. “You can’t trust Sebastian. Please let me—” He pressed the point of the needle against his skin until it slipped beneath the milky whiteness.
“Sebastian is my only friend. That’s why he brought me this. To make it easier.”
Peter stood on wobbly legs and pulled back the curtains, revealing an expanse of blue sky. With one hand, he shielded his face from the light. A tight knot twisted in my stomach. Peter grabbed the chair and hurled it through the window—then leaned forward, stuck his head into the crisp winter air, and closed his eyes. He seemed suddenly calm. My knot loosened a little, until an alarm began screaming relentlessly.
“Dead men don’t talk.” I compelled myself to move, but it was too late. He swung one leg over the jagged-glassed windowsill, then the other. The last thing I saw was Peter’s shock of reddish hair as he dropped—without a sound—into oblivion.
CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE
LONG GONE
AS MY HEART throbbed in my throat, the elevator began its labored crawl downward toward the first floor. I pushed away Peter’s last words, focusing instead on the small, numbered buttons that stood between me and anywhere else but here.
Please don’t stop. Please don’t stop. Please don’t stop.
At the final ding, I took a quick breath and steadied myself against the rail, waiting for the doors to part to chaos. I felt wooden—lifeless and hollow. Green Briar’s first floor reappeared slowly, an inch at a time. But once revealed, it wasn’t at all what I expected, and I shuddered. While Peter’s freefall sent my entire world spinning off its axis, everyone else was oblivious. A uniformed security guard pushed past me, muttering under his breath. “Probably another false alarm.” Blank-faced, I nodded.
With her eyes reaffixed to her computer tablet, Julie barely noticed when I willed my legs past her and out the door.
“Hey!” she called after me. “You forgot to sign out.”
For the second time in my life, I was running from Green Briar with my mother’s voice in my head.
“Emovere was never intended for a growing brain.” She was sitting at her desk facing me, clutching the boy’s file in her lap. Her eyes were hard, but her hands shook a little as she spoke. A few minutes after my mother had left him, the boy collapsed inside the cage and was comatose.
“Who was it intended for, Mom? All these people here, they all have problems because of it. Why can’t you just accept that?” My words were pointed. Poison arrows, they catapulted toward her before I could redirect them.
My mother was quiet, and I was overcome by an immediate swell of regret. I knew she already blamed herself. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but she smacked the file down against the desk, preempting my apology. It felt like a slap to the face. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I wish I could do it all differently?” She stood up, her fists clenched at her side. “Not a day goes by that I don’t have regrets, but I did it all for you.”
“For me?” I felt the sear of indignation at the back of my throat. She was blaming me? “Are you saying this is my fault?” I wriggled away as she reached for me. “Wow, Mom. Wow. A ten-year-old boy shoots up with his dad’s Emovere and burns down a whole block, killing his whole family in the process, and it’s my fault.” I knew I was being unreasonable, that wasn’t what she meant—what did she mean?—but I bolted from her office anyway, punctuating my escape with a slam of the door.
It seemed we were both running. Me and the girl that I was. My breath was coming in staccato gasps that I could barely control, but I kept running. My legs burned, then went numb, but I kept running. At the sign—where I’d let my mother catch up to me five years ago—I stopped, half expecting to find my old self there. But she was long gone, and I was alone.
I felt an arm around my shoulder. “Lex, are you okay? What happened?” I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Still, Carrie’s voice was a comfort. At least I wasn’t alone anymore. Her hand on my back, she guided me to the car.
My father had repositioned himself in the driver’s seat. As we approached, his eyes took me in and revealed his worry all at once. I collapsed into the front seat, suddenly exhausted. “Radley’s dead.” I let the words fill the space around us. They were the suffocating kind, words that demanded more words, but I wasn’t ready to offer any. The wail of an ambulance, blaring around the corner, gave a voice to the bedlam inside of me. I watched in the side mirror as the ambulance made a hurried turn to Green Briar. I didn’t even know I was crying until I tasted the warm brine of my tears. I rested my head against the seat and let them fall.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THREATS AND PROMISES
WE WERE ALMOST home before I spoke. I could feel my father watching me, waiting for something. Anything. I listened to Carrie’s breathing, shallow at first, then deep and even. I matched my breaths to hers. “I think he took Emovere first,” I finally said, breaking the spell of silence. “Then he jumped.”
My father’s eyes opened wide, but he withheld his questions, allowing me to continue. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. The words tumbled out—the whole story—as if it was essential to exorcise them. We sat in the driveway with the motor running until I finished.
“Did he say who sent him on this mission?” my dad asked after I stopped speaking and turned to him.
I shook my head, then shrugged. “The New Resistance? I don’t know.” I unfastened my seat belt, opened the door, and slogged toward the house with Carrie behind me. My father jettisoned ahead, already typing furiously on his computer tablet.
“It sounds like this String fellow could shed some light on that,” Carrie suggested.
My father stopped walking and spoke over his shoulder. “If we have to count on String’s help, we’re in big trouble.” We exchanged a knowing look. Peter Radley trusted String. Counted on him. Look where that got him.
That night I found a red-eyed Carrie in my mother’s lab, hunched over a folder. On the counter nearby was one of the boxes marked Dishes. “What are you looking at?” I asked.
She motioned me over without looking up and answered with a question of her own. “Can’t sleep either?”
“Not really.” Carried nodded, unsurprised. Over her shoulder, I read the name on the file: Inmate 413 Everett Markum. Emma’s father. Carrie was holding a newspaper article, tracing the headline with her finger. San Francisco Ex-Con Massacres Family, Leaves Nine-Year-Old Daughter As Sole Survivor.
“Did Emma tell you about her dad?” I asked.
Carrie sighed. “She didn’t have to. Once they agreed to participate in the rehab program, they were assigned a specialist like me. We received their Guardian Force files and were required to learn everything about them.” Everything. That ambitious word repeated itself in my head. I doubted anyone knew everything about Emma.
“Well, maybe not everything,” Carrie amended. “But I knew enough. I should’ve guessed she would do something like this.” Her guilt was palpable.
“What do you mean? How could you have known?”
“The Prophecy Pro
gram for starters.”
I stifled a gasp. “You knew about Prophecy?”
She nodded. “Only after I started working with a few of the Legacies.” I didn’t let on, but I was relieved my mother hadn’t told her. It would have felt like another betrayal. “This probably won’t surprise you, but Ryker knew all along. They made special efforts to recruit Legacies at risk for the gene. Emma told me they followed her for months before she agreed to enlist.” I squirmed in my seat, thinking of Quin and how the Guardian recruiting officers searched for him before Edison turned him over.
Carrie read my mind. “I’m sure they pursued Quin as well.”
“So you think Emma was genetically predisposed to kill someone?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted an answer.
And Carrie didn’t seem eager to give one. “Yes and no.” She paged to the tab marked Criminal History, line after line—several pages worth—of Everett Markum’s misdeeds. I scanned the page along with her. Robbery, assault, resisting arrest, domestic violence. Murder. “Emma was impulsive and reckless like her father, but she wasn’t callous. Not without Emovere and Onyx anyway. Her records from the Guardian Force showed that. Her empathy scores prior to recruitment were above average.” I resisted the urge to scoff.
Carrie flipped through the rest of the file to the back. A Markum family photograph was affixed with tape to the folder. It had yellowed a little around its edges. In it, Emma was immediately recognizable. She was sitting on her mother’s lap, directing a playful smile at the camera. “Emma warned me,” Carrie said. “She told me she would never go back. No matter what.”
I remembered how Emma reacted when the commander asked for her name. At the time, I assumed she was being her usual uncooperative self. “Were they still looking for her?”
Carrie shrugged. “There were so many more like her. It was me they wanted—for starting it all. But, Emma was a leader too. After she left, others followed.”
“Do you think Radley was one of them?”
“Maybe, but I was long gone by that time.” Carrie’s eyes were somewhere else again. When I touched her shoulder, it startled her. “Did you know the rehabilitation program was partially funded by Zenigenic?” she asked.
My stomach lurched. “I thought it was sponsored by the government.”
Carrie cackled. Her laughter was unhinged, equal parts fear and irony. “Is there any difference?” Since the government’s cover-up of its involvement with General Ryker, I had asked myself the same question. The answer—it should have been obvious by now—was still unsettling. Suddenly, Carrie’s eyes were teary. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I sound bitter … and paranoid.”
“Did they threaten you?”
Carrie swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t call them threats. More like promises. They made it clear what would happen to my family if I didn’t resign.”
“Your family?” As soon as I spoke the words, I saw my mother’s face, and my thoughts started spinning. “That little boy you mentioned earlier, the one at Green Briar … ”
Carrie nodded at me. “I remembered his name,” she said. “Logan Arrington. The boy responsible for the ban on Emovere, right?”
“Right. Logan.” Saying his name aloud felt dangerous, as if it had the power to transport me back there. “I was there with my mom when they brought him in. She told me something that day I only just remembered—that she did this all for me. Do you think … ?” I couldn’t finish. I wanted it to be true—my mother unselfishly toiling away at Zenigenic as long as she had to, not to quell her ambition, but to protect me. I also wanted it to be untrue. How could she set all of this—Emovere, Onyx, her death—on my shoulders?
Carrie put her arm around me. “I know your mom would’ve moved heaven and earth to keep you safe.”
“Did she ever say anything to you?” I held my breath.
“No. Nothing.” Of course not.
It’s not real. I tried to say the words aloud but no sound came from my mouth. My mother was kneeling at my bedside. Her eyes were closed. Why won’t she look at me? Shame coursed through my body as thick as blood.
“Mom?” My voice was a croak, but at least I heard it. She did too. Her eyes opened, and she raised her head. Twin tears tracked her cheeks, but she stayed silent. Around her neck was a rope. Underneath it, her skin was red and raw. I followed its coarse braid to the hand that held it. The grip was fierce, unforgiving. I peered into the thicket of shadows desperate to see the face.
“Doctor, isn’t this what you wanted?” The hand gave a forceful jerk and my mother winced as the rope cut deeper into her neck. That voice. It came from the darkest corner of the darkest room on the darkest day of my soul. “Or would you rather I destroy the very thing that you gave birth to?” Ryker. I recoiled at his words. They were familiar, slimy with his disgust for me, for my mother.
“Lex, you have to wake up now.” My mother’s voice was just like I remembered it.
From his hiding place in the shadows, I felt Ryker reach for me with intention. His fingers wound around my arm, tight and tighter still.
“Lex, wake up.”
Suddenly, he was close, way too close, but I was afraid to look. It’s not real. I willed my head to turn toward him and met the electric blue of Xander’s eyes. “Your mother works for me now. She always has.” I coiled my fist into a tight ball and punched him in the face.
CHAPTER THIRTY - ONE
FUGITIVE STATUS
I’LL ADMIT IT. Ever since I first met her, strutting around Edison’s house like she owned it, I’ve always wanted to punch Emma. So I was more than a little disappointed I didn’t get to see her expression when my knuckles collided with her perfect nose. Luckily, I woke up in time to witness the aftermath.
“Ow!” Emma doubled over, clutching her face a few feet from the lab table, where Carrie and I had fallen asleep. “I’m bleeding.” She pulled her hand from her nose and displayed the evidence to Carrie. Her palm was a shocking shade of red. Clutched beneath her fingers was a key.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, sitting upright. I was suddenly but completely awake. “Is that our spare key?”
“Why did you hit me?” she countered. Before I could respond, she turned to Carrie. “Why are you here?”
Carrie’s eyes darted between us, uncertain where to land. “Lex and I know each other. We met when I worked for the Resistance.”
“Of course, you did.” Emma rolled her eyes. “Does she know?”
Carrie nodded.
“Great.” Evidently, fugitive status had done little to improve her attitude.
I stood up, and Emma reflexively stepped back. I almost laughed. She was afraid of me. “I was dreaming. I thought you were Xander.” I walked to the door and opened it, ready to usher her out. “But I’m glad I did. You can’t be here. They’re looking for you.”
She smirked. “Don’t you mean us?”
“What are you talking about?” Accusatory, I practically spit the words out at her, but my stomach took a nosedive.
“See for yourself,” she said. “It’s all over the news.”
I was reeling inside, but I wasn’t about to let Emma stay in my house any longer, not after what she had done. “Leave. Now.” I motioned toward the door. “And I’ll need that key back.” She wiped it on her jeans, leaving a swipe trail of her blood across her thigh. “How did you find it anyway?” I asked. The key was expertly hidden by Quin, what seemed like forever ago, beneath a loose board on our porch.
Emma raised her eyes to mine. “Do you really want to know?” I cocked my eyebrows, waiting. “Quin told me where to find it.”
My fist begged to hit her again. “I don’t believe you.”
“He said you’d say that and to tell you that he hid it there himself.” My heart suspended in my chest—stuck, stuck, stuck—like a fly in amber. I barely registered Emma’s next few sentences. “ … didn’t have anywhere else to go … cornered him … alone outside Zenigenic … said you’d help me … ” The
worst part was I couldn’t send her away now. Quin was counting on me.
We marched in silence, single file back to the house. Inside, my father was awake. So was Artos. They were planted side by side on the sofa, my dad staring intently at the television, so focused he didn’t even hear us come in.
Artos perked his head, sending my father on a desperate search for the remote, trying to delay the inevitable. “I already know. They’re looking for me.”
“How do you—?” His face blanched as his eyes registered Emma. “I’m calling the police.” He reached for his cell phone. Its screen was flashing: 10 missed calls. Probably all from Langley.
“Dad, think about what you’re saying.” I joined him on the couch. “The police aren’t even looking for Emma, remember? Besides, Quin told her to come here.” Frustrated, he returned his phone to the coffee table—where it sat still blinking—as a stone-faced Barbara Blake revealed my fate. “Well, you can’t stay,” he added as an unconvincing afterthought.
“Tonight, I am reporting live just outside the gates of the Green Briar Recovery Center with breaking news. Only hours ago, we were informed that 19-year-old Peter Radley sustained fatal injuries after falling from his tenth-story window. Authorities have confirmed he was under the influence of Emovere at the time. Though the death appears to be a suicide, investigators have been reluctant to rule out foul play. They are searching for a person of interest, Emma Markum, who visited Green Briar around the time of Mr. Radley’s death.”
“Funny,” Emma said. “I don’t remember being there.” As we exchanged a mutual glare, I saw myself on the screen. I was running.
“Video surveillance captured Ms. Markum fleeing the facility just before Mr. Radley’s body was discovered. At this time, she is not a suspect in a crime, but is encouraged to turn herself in to police for questioning. As many of you are aware, Emma Markum is no stranger to tragedy. In 2032, her mother, stepfather, and older sister were fatally shot by her father. She was the only survivor.”